Winter walk

Just a quick update; I've been very busy with work at Disability Rights UK since new year. It's good to be busy though, keeps me out of mischief.

I was at Moorfields hospital again last week for a follow up appointment. Since Christmas my eye has been less painful but not completely pain free. I'd also been experiencing a strange type of double vision which appeared like ghosting on an old TV set. It was particularly bad around bright things like when at the cinema or street & head lights. Anyway my consultant said that it was caused by internal inflammation of my eye caused by bits of lens debris (the stuff I had removed last year - except some escaped.) I've got to take steroid eye drops for the next couple of months and if the lens matter doesn't get reabsorbed by the eye then I'll have to have another op. Ho hum.

Yesterday I decided to go exploring across the public footpaths that lead virtually from our front door across the fields. I took the photo below of a tree I passed on the walk, I've only seen it from a distance from our bedroom window before :-) It was a lovely winter walk though a bit blustery.

Bread baking and cat update

I felt a bit rubbish this morning when I got up. I've been over sleeping again. I really need to get a regular routine going. Anyway as I felt a bit rubbish I thought I'd do some baking and cooking. So I baked some bread, following the Fabulous Baker Brothers' instructions for a perfect crusty white loaf Their method didn't differ too much from how I usually make it but the knead it for twice as long and throw a cup of water onto the baking tray before going in the oven. The bread turned out great and I have to say the dough was fantastic after 20 minutes kneading by hand!

With it being so sunny today I popped out into the garden to take a few pictures. I've really just left the garden to its own devices over the last few months not sure what to do with all the pots. But below is a picture of one of the winter baskets I bought back in November.

Cats update

Lumpy and Kasumi have been living with us now for nearly 3 weeks, although it seems a lot longer; they have settled in so well. Jason has taken some great photos of them playing and wrestling with each other which I hope to link to on the blog very soon. I have to say Lumpy can be a bit rough with his sister, even throwing in some WWE Smack down moves, but Kasumi seems to love it. Their personalities are really coming out now.

Let's start with Kasumi pictured below hinting that she would like some food! She seems to be the greediest of the two and even ate some duck egg omelette today, which had fallen off Jason's plate. She always finishes any food her brother leaves behind. She is a little minx always up to mischief, whether she is chasing after her brother, hiding inside her play tunnel ready to pounce on her bird toy which I dangle for her or just tearing up tissue paper. You can see said tissue paper in front of her in the picture. She loves attention but it's always on her terms. She adores Jason, snuggling up with him on the settee at night when he's playing Skyrim. I think she's a secret gamer.

Kasumi hinting that she would like some food

Lumpy on the other hand is far more laid back, though he loves to play and stalk his sister. When he catches Kasumi he'll wrestle with her for ages. Lumpy likes to know what's going on in the world, he loves sitting in the window of my study watching the world go by. Although we are trying to keep them indoors until they have had their second lot of vaccinations in 2 weeks time, he has been out in the garden twice. Both times he made his way home by himself which was a relief. The last time he went out he jumped on to the shed roof and miaowed to me to show me how brilliant he thought he was. I'm sure that when he's allowed to go out and explore he will be King of the neighbourhood! At night though he likes to sprawl out on my lap whilst I'm knitting and watching TV. He seems particularly fond of Clint Eastwood films!

Lumpy hinting that he would like to go out.

Lastly I took a photo of the single lavender flower which bloomed on the day we got the cats. Rookie's ashes are beneath the lavender bush so I saw it as a sign that she approved of us getting two new cats :-)

Cats Christmas and New Year

Cats Christmas and New Year, a set on Flickr.

I've just uploaded these photos of our new cats to flickr. The photos were taken during their first week with us and I think you can tell that they have really begun to settle in with us.

Lumpy is still the braver of the two but Kasumi is a lot less skittish now, Last night she even sat with Jason on the settee as he played on the PS3. She spent the whole time head butting him and kneading him with her paws.

Lumpy has sat on my lap now a couple of times but he tends to roll about and let his head fall of the end of my knees or the settee. Although I wasn't keen on the name Lumpy he is a big lump of a cat and such a softy that I think the name suits him well.

We are having hours of fun playing with the cats and watching them play with each other. They are totally devoted to each other, spending a lot of time grooming each other and play fighting.

Giving up broadcast news

After saying I don't like New Year's resolutions I'm now setting myself a new year challenge to give up watching the news on TV and listening to it on the radio.

Why?

Well more and more I find myself being angered by how the news is reported and what media outlets consider to be news worthy. I've wondered for a while if watching the news was making me more anxious and unhappy. So I'm going to see if it's true. By giving up watching and listening to the news.

My news habits

I've always watched and listened to the news. I grew up with Radio 4 on the radio and my parents watch the news almost religiously. As many people do, including me. As a child and teenager I I prided myself in being "well informed" and really didn't understand why some of my friends showed little interest in the news.

For a long time now I've been media aware enough to question what I see on the news. My unease at how the news is reported and how what is "news worthy" is decided, has grown recently.

But it's for more personal reasons that I'm going to cut out the broadcast news. I just think I watch and listen to too much news and it's making me unhappy and anxious.

News junkie

I start my day by listening to the news, then I usually listen to 5Live radio for a lot of the day whilst working from home. In the evening I'll watch the 6 o'clock news, the local news and sometimes even the channel 4 news! Then at night there's the 10 o'clock news and News Night. That's a lot of hours being devoted to news. Way too much.

I mean that's an extreme case but I reckon that on an average day I consume at least 2 hours of broadcast news.

The trouble with broadcast news is that unless you switch off you have no choice in which stories you want to follow. If I rely on the Internet for my news consumption then I pick and choose what to read.

The challenge

I am to forego all broadcast news for a month I will only get my news from Twitter - where I follow many different news outlets from around the world. So I can still be "informed" but I choose what to read and when I want to read it. If I find I'm spending 4 hours looking for news on twitter then I'll rethink this but I have a feeling my twitter consumption will remain about the same.

I'll keep you updated as to how I go! I think I'll miss Drive time on 5 live the most. I love grumpy Peter Allen :-(

Happy New Year!

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

2011 was a tough year for me but also a fantastic year;

I had 2 eye operations and around 6 weeks of not being able to see out of my left eye which was a hard thing to cope with, but

I also got married and went on a fabulous honeymoon!

So 2011 was challenging and rewarding in equal measure so I'm now looking forward to a change in 2012. Maybe a quieter year...

I'm not one for new year's resolutions, why only make changes at this time of the year? But this year I think I will make some resolutions. I don't like negative resolutions where you say I won't do this I won't do that. So I'm trying to make positive resolutions.

I will eat more healthily and exercise more

I will spend money more wisely

I will be more thankful for all my blessings

I will relax more and take things more slowly

I will write more often on my blog and creatively

Those are my resolutions, I'll come back to them later in the year and see if I'm sticking to them.

Cat update!

I'll finish my post with a photo of our two new cats Lumpy and Kasumi. I took the photo a couple of days ago. They still like sleeping at the top of the stairs at night. They have really settled in well. Kasumi has come out of her shell and loves having a fuss made of her, she was ever so brave when Jason's friend Mike came round on New Year's Day, she came straight up to him for a stroke and a tummy tickle! Lumpy greets us with a little chirruping miaow and follows me around the house in the day. At night the two cats play in the living room often chasing each other as well as their toys!

Cats

As friends and regular readers will know we lost our beautiful little cat Rookie to cancer back in the summer. She was 19 so had a long life full of love and happiness. We wanted to wait a while until we thought about getting another cat, especially as we were getting married in the autumn

and going on honeymoon.

When we got back from our honeymoon in early December I got in touch with a local cat rehoming and adoption charity called RATS The lady from RATS came out to vet us in our home, always stressful even though I know we have a lovely home in a very quiet location. Anyway, she said we could adopt a cat from them but they weren't taking many cats on over the Christmas period so their fosterer could have a break. We'd need to wait until the New Year.

Then on Tuesday night we got a phone call from Stuart, Jason's brother to say he had two lovely tabby cats who needed a home would we be interested? Yes of course we said!

So pictured left are the 2 gorgeous tabbies which Stuart and Vicky brought round for us on Wednesday. The picture was taken on Wednesday when the cats had not been here too long. Once we let them out of the kitchen to explore the downstairs and upstairs hallways they decided that they liked the look of the top of our stairs where the hall turns down to the bathroom!

They are brother and sister and under 2.

They were originally Vicky's brother's cats but he needed to re-home them due to family circumstances. We are just so pleased that we are able to give them both a good home!

Jason has had his heart set on finding a beautiful sleek cat and then giving him the ironic name of Lumpy (I can't say I was keen on this name one bit!) The lovely larger male tabby certainly fits the bill being handsome and sleek so he is now Lumpy. (I sometimes call him Lord Humphrey Lumpyton; he's very distinguished looking as you'll see from the photo of him below, stretched out on the end of the bed!)

He is the braver of the two cats and loves exploring and climbing on things, he also loves watching out of the windows.

He really looks after his little sister though, even

licking her face sometimes :-) On the first day they curled up together in front of the bathroom door for the afternoon and had a well earned nap as you can see above!

Lumpy's little sister was harder for me to name. I really wanted her to have an unusual name which summed her up. After two days of wracking my brain and rejecting "Estella" (It would only work if Lumpy was called Pip) I decided to call her Kasumi which is Japanese for misty or hazy.

As you can see from this picture Kasumi is a misty colour and certainly can appear and disappear as quickly as sea mist!

Although she is slightly more timid at the moment than her brother she still loves exploring and in the evening will appear on the rug in the living room to play with her catnip toys. She loves stalking the mouse and then pouncing on him and throwing him about in the air. She also loves being stoked and having her tummy rubbed, though she'll grab your hand and hold on to it fast if you let her.

Today we opened up our smallest spare room for them to explore (we're just introducing to them to new rooms very slowly so they don't get overwhelmed.) It's my laundry room usually so has a clothes horse in it which they both enjoyed exploring. Lumpy likes the wide window sill - which he can spread out in and watch the garden from.

Lumpy is already King of the living room, rolling on the rug or guarding the french doors as you can see in the picture here. Both cats are really loving and although they are still getting used to

us and the new house they want lots of cuddles and fuss. I can tell that they are gong to provide us with endless fun and affection and I feel privileged to share our home with two such beautiful and loving animals.

Not blogging for a while

Sorry for not having blogged for a while. It's not as if I don't have a lot to blog about. There was the last week of our honeymoon in Miami and then our wedding celebration with family once we got back. Unfortunately I've not been feeling very well over the last 2 weeks.

My left eye, the one operated on twice this year, flared up again both red and painful. My consultant saw it and put me back on the steroid eye drops. But the real problem is depression. To be honest I've stopped looking for reasons why my depression and anxiety flare up. I know that the last time we got home from a  big holiday I was very unwell. In fact it was that bout of anxiety and depression which caused me to finally seek proper help, which in turn lead me to change my life style. I started working part time, I then started up my own business so I'd have control over my work and we moved house out of London to somewhere quieter.

I certainly don't regret those changes I had to make the changes. But now my anxiety and depression seem to be focussed on the fact that I don't have any structure to my life, that I'm working from home most of the time and not interacting with others. I feel isolated not having a car and living outside of London with out a car is difficult for me. Many of the places I'd like to visit around here can't be accessed by public transport and those that can the public transport stops running at 5PM! I think having a car and Jason being able to drive me around to places at the weekend has really made me realise how different things would be for me if I could drive. Something up until now I have never been bothered about. In London you're better off with out a car!

But I don't want to moan and make my blog an unhappy place. I've been very open on the blog about my mental health so I thought it was only right that I explained that the reason I've not been blogging lately is because I am feeling anxious and depressed again. I'll just have to ride this one out for a while I think. I'm seeing my CBT nurse on the 9th January.

Alligators and Thanksgiving

Earlier in the week we went on a trip to the Everglades to see alligators and a boat trip around Miami. We were driven about all day in a little mini bus.

We went on a airboat trip around the Everglades and saw a few alligators including babies out in the river. (The Everglades aren't a swamp as such but a series of rivers apparently) the airboat went quite fast in places and I was a bit scared.

We then saw an animal show, which basically involved a bloke showing us a scorpion, toad, lizard & alligator. I've got more photos on my actual camera but I can't upload those until I get home. Below there should be a photo of a baby alligator. For lunch I had the alligator tail platter. It was like KFC but more chewy. Yep like just about every kind of unusual meat, alligator tastes a bit like chicken!

We were then driven back to Miami to go on our boat trip. The boat took us to see various islands including Fisher and Star island. It was mainly to see the homes of the rich and famous. Jase took lots of pics which I'll link to when we get home. But below is a photo I took of Miami Beach Marina.

When we got back to the hotel we had champagne and chocolate strawberries waiting for us in our room as a honeymoon gift from the hotel.

The next day I unfortunately got food poisoning, probably from the raw eggs in a chocolate mousse I had at a steak restaurant. So spent 24 hours in a lot of pain and unable to eat. The first meal I ate was Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday evening at the hotel. I couldn't eat a great deal but managed to enjoy the Thanksgiving fare especially the mac and cheese. We then watched Charlie Brown, a Thanksgiving TV tradition.

On Black Friday, we went to Macy's shopping. Black Friday is like the US version of our January sales. Anyway Macy's on South Beach wasn't busy and I picked up a few bargains, a red handbag, purple purse, and two pairs of jeans for less than £60!

I still wasn't feeling 100% until today when we went to the News cafe and I managed to eat a lasagne and share a slice of Key Lime Pie with Jase.

Sunset walk

We've had a few lazy days over the weekend and today. We spent Saturday on the hotel's beach. We had sun loungers and umbrella plus waiter service which meant I got to eat a huge hotdog on the beach. We have done a lot of walking around South Beach most days.

Our hotel is hosting the annual NASCAR awards ceremony tonight after this weekends NASCAR final in Miami. I've probably been sitting next to NASCAR drivers maybe even this year's champion but I wouldn't know it! This morning there were NASCAR cars parked out the front of our hotel along with a big broadcast truck.

This evening I went for a walk at sunset through Lumus Park and took the photos below of the view to our hotel, the beach and Ocean Drive.

Tomorrow we're off to the Everglades and a Miami boat trip.

Miami

We arrived safely in Miami 2 days ago. We had a marvellous flight out. The Concord Lounge at Heathrow was very fabulous - waitress service & lovely food. We saw Elvis Costello in the lounge too.

First class on the plane was wonderful the food exceptionally good. I changed into my BA pjs and watched the Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

We arrived in Miami early and had a smooth journey through immigration. The hotel is fantastic. Our room has a private balcony With chairs and table. We overlook the pool and beach. Below are some photos of the beach and views from our room.

My first thought and experiences of Miami Beach and the USA are:

Everything comes with cheese
I saw a fire hydrant shooting gallons of water into a street, just like in a cartoon or US comedy!
The TV is hilarious totally unintentionally - my favourite advert is for "Forever Lazy" a fleece romper suit for adults. The ad says it has "front and back flaps for your convenience!"
Everyone says "You're Welcome" automatically which my niece Lucia would approve of as she always says that too!
I've been in a "yellow taxi."
I've never seen so much art deco in my life - I love art deco so I'm in art deco heaven!
I've eaten a twinkie bought from a drug store and proper American burger from a place called 5 napkin burger (unlike other burgers you need more than one napkin if you eat a burger from 5 napkin - that's right you need 5 napkins!)

After gorgeous weather yesterday we've had rain and wind today. I made the most of the bad weather and booked into the spa for a massage, which was great really relaxing!

Tomorrow the weather is set to improve so it's back to sunshine.